Niven Govinden - Graffiti My Soul

Her eyes shark about my chips.

‘You’re either not hungry,’ she goes, ‘or you’re incredibly nervous. One of the two.’

I could have told her about how gluten is the biggest verboten on my diet sheet, and how a chunk of ciabatta would slug me up and turn my running a notch down, making my steps lumpy rather than sleek. But it’s easier this way, keeping my mouth shut, staying silent and mysterious, so that she’s always wondering but never completely pinpointing. The truth, that I’m really fucking nervous on my debut pre-date, and that I’m a Nazi about food, isn’t what a girl needs to hear.

Britney mimes throughout the show like the lazy whore she is. It’s only the costumes that keep me awake, all see-through body stockings and slivers of g-string. Without these brief flashes of titty and camel toe, beds appearing out of nowhere, and girl dancers snogging each other for the hell of it, I’d be falling asleep. Everyone else around me is hysterical with joy, making me feel like the world’s biggest party pooper.

About halfway, when she’s getting all serious and true to her artistic self, the on-stage confessional, my phone goes. It’s Jason. He always knows when to call at the most inappropriate moments. Last week it was when Kelly and me were getting comfortable round my house, now it’s Britney. I can barely hear him and shout down the phone like a twat. ‘What? I’m at a concert. Britney. BRITNEY SPEARS! BRITNEY!’ etc. Everyone around us shoots me like I’m the biggest piece of shit. I could have left the call but knew that if I made a big deal with Jason it would get back to Moon. Kelly gives me the smallest of nudges but keeps her eyes fixed on the stage — we’ve all been waiting for Britney to make some reference to her mismatched marriages and this feels like it could be the moment. We are sat in an area teaming with homosexualists. I don’t know whether they want to thump me or do me. I’m wearing my new Nike vest top and my Jesus Is My Homeboy cap so I figure it’s maybe a little of both.

On the way home we act like one of those couples that’s been together years; we don’t speak to each other. Kelly’s pissed about the call. She’s at her most dressed up tonight, Von Dutch from head to toe, ironed mouse hair cascading from her flat cap, giant gold hoops that are more high street than hip hop, and isn’t happy with anything that makes her look immature. Giving off the vibe that I’m the most childish accessory she’s got. Also, she’s annoyed because I wouldn’t get out of my seat to dance to ‘Toxic’. The only time I did move was when one of the friendlier-looking homosexualists went out for a slash, chasing him up the concourse and persuading him to get a couple of extra beers for two children in need. I thought I’d got a result, because I felt her displeasure fairly early on, but even half a cup of Carling, as warm and as yellow as one of the samples in Mum’s car boot, wouldn’t placate her. She didn’t touch it.

Kelly dances like she doesn’t care. Come the Madonna duet it’s my turn to keep my eyes on the stage, on the audience below, anywhere but on her. Kel relies on the homosexualists around her to complete the routine when she sees that I’m a hopeless case; she is Britney, they are Madonna. I can’t help it. I’m a runner not a dancer. We play about in her room all the time, but I’ve never seen her dance like this before, like when you’re really caught up in the music and the spectacle; vocal and abandoned. I learn more about what’s going in Kel’s head in those three minutes than I have done in the past two weeks. Her moves are all passion, and they are solely for her. I’m well aware that this isn’t a seduction dance. Her eyes would be open otherwise.

Watching her from the corner of my eye, all I see is her profile, button nose, skinny slug lips, the eyelashes of a cow; cheekbones as high and contoured and shiny as an Audi panel. She spray-tanned the night before, giving her skin the colour of over-done toast, something close to mine. From this angle I don’t recognise her. It’s like looking at someone else. Honest moments like this always make me nervous, that’s why I’m happier nodding my head, hands in pockets, wondering when Brit’s now fully-clothed prancing will stop. I don’t do emotional exchanges through dance or otherwise.

The tube is so noisy there isn’t any need to add to it; our silent state is approved. Carriages crammed with more sportswear than JD, including what looks like an orange and black trackie, similar to Casey’s; some dad out with his kid. You get a better class of person in Wembley. More homosexualists clapping their hands and waxing lyrical on how ‘Slave 4 U’ compared to the MTV version, and some drab pasty woman over thirty with a big red mouth looking like a sore vagina harping on to her equally ugly friend about Steve from head office who wasn’t responding to any of her advances. Poor bastard, whoever he is, having to look at that every day. I try and make eye contact with Kel, and when that doesn’t work, knock her knee in the direction of the drab women, as if to say look at those spinster freaks, but she doesn’t see the joke and shoots me the look she’s picked up from the homosexualists.

‘I should have known better than to bring a bloke. At least Lizzie would have danced with me.’

‘I was dancing.’

‘Veep, slouching around with your hands in your pockets isn’t dancing.’

‘Tell that to Michael Jackson.’

Britney being the diva bitch monster down to the last single molecule took to the stage over a half hour late, meaning by the time we push through the cheap trackie bottoms and the Sex and the City cast-offs, and finally reach Waterloo, we miss the last train by two minutes.

‘Disaster, mate,’ goes Kel. ‘Bloody disaster.’

She’s always calling me mate when she’s not using Veep. Her family are traders so everything’s all cor blimey guvnor, strike a light. It’s not what I’m used to.

Kel calls her mum, who panics and duly dispatches her dad up the A3 pronto.

‘Listen to me, Kel. Stay where there’s plenty of people, and don’t talk to anyone,’ she goes, the quivering modulations of a normally hardy woman who has been floored by sitting through too many evenings of Crimewatch .

She calls back five minutes later.

‘Better still, stay near the security cameras. It’s the safest place to be.’

It makes you want to disappear for an hour or two just to shit her up.

We pool the last of our cash and set up camp on the Burger King balcony. Fags for Kelly, a milkshake each, and a jumbo box of nuggets for me. A feast. This was exactly the reason I’d endured ninety minutes of Britney’s cod artistry and an hour of Kelly’s wrath — for this late-night one to one with my beautiful girlfriend.

Kel isn’t like Moon, so everything is easy. I don’t have to try so hard. Her eyes soften after a sip or two of milkshake, curled lips shift from down to up. We snog in Burger King for what feels like an hour. Her lips are the tenderest I’ve ever felt, her tongue the longest, her breath the sweetest.

There’s this sign tattooed to my forehead that says I’m hookable. She hands over the snogs, knowing this.

Now that we’re going out officially, Kel is holding back on the sex. Wants us to talk more, hang. Since my treat in the park, we’ve only done it once — on my sofa when Mum went for Chinese. A fifteen-minute wonder. She still flirts like a mother whether we’re alone or not, but unlike Moon none of it’s for show. When we talk, she only ever has eyes for me, there’s none of this looking over my shoulder to check who’s around, grass-is-greener bollocks.

After the Pearson business, Kel’s honesty comes as a welcome relief; feels like a holiday away from female madness. I’m not as bothered about the sex as I thought I would be. Sometimes just being with her is enough. I’m shooting them off every night obviously — I am fifteen — but I ain’t worried. Sooner or later she’ll get so hot and crack, and then the curtains will part, haha.